


Circumstantial Evidence

by ChangeWillSaveYou



Series: No Space in This Room for Both God and Fear [1]
Category: BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Genre: Flip's POV, Gen, Men Talking about Penises, Missing Scene, Organized Hate Groups, Tobacco use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 03:58:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15941330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChangeWillSaveYou/pseuds/ChangeWillSaveYou
Summary: In his basement Jew den, crazy redneck Felix held Flip at gunpoint and demanded an answer to the question “Are you circumstanced?” None of this is funny. So why’s Ron Stallworth in such a great mood?





	Circumstantial Evidence

**Author's Note:**

> This story does not depict any positive understanding of Jewish identity, because Flip has no positive understanding of Jewish identity.

Sarge could have gotten the entire operation shut down after the clusterfuck at Felix Kendrickson’s KKK house party. He didn’t. To the contrary. Instead, he gave Ron the go-ahead to make more phone calls, get in deeper, set up another in-person meeting.

In person for Flip, that is. Flip, undercover as Ron Stallworth, undercover as a goddamn white supremacist.

Yesterday, in the records room, Ron had accused Flip of not caring as much as he should. That was after Flip had accused Ron of turning his investigation into a personal crusade. Flip had been angry, obviously. The threat of the lie detector, the reality of that psycho Felix showing him the inside of a gun barrel and demanding a peep inside his skivvies, still had Flip reeling. He wasn’t thinking clearly.

After sleeping on it, Flip was no less angry, but something occurred to him: did Ron care? Ron somehow had the ability to absorb the worst kind of racist abuse over the telephone and respond with nothing but “God bless White America.” In fact, Ron barely kept the smile out of his voice when he said it.

 _Maybe the rookie’s in it for kicks_ , Flip thought. _Maybe it’s not a crusade, after all. Maybe it’s a game, fucking with the neighborhood redneck social club. After all, it’s not his own ass on the line. Or his johnson._

Ron made the next set of calls at his desk. Sarge sat by his side, sharing the line and taking careful notes. Jimmy greeted the team cheerfully and perched himself on top of Flip’s desk, directly across from Ron, to observe the proceedings.

Flip played with his lighter, flicking it open and closed. Jimmy rolled his eyes and silently removed the lighter from Flip’s hand, so when he stubbed out his spent cigarette Flip had no choice but to pick up a ballpoint pen and fiddle with that.

Professional as always, Ron handled Felix beautifully over the phone. Said some real loving things about Felix’s crazy bitch of a wife. Apologized for taking Felix’s weapon. Promised that given a second chance he would never miss that black man who threw the rock through the kitchen window — only he didn’t say black man.

 _See, right there_ , Flip thought. _Why doesn’t that hurt him?_

Even at that moment, there was the quirk of a smile on Ron’s face. Ron’s eyes scanned rapidly over Sarge’s notes and he held the phone receiver at a precise angle in order to share the call. But when Felix agreed to a date for the next meeting, Ron made a show of polishing the knuckles of his free hand on the front of his shirt.

Ron looked like… Ron looked like he was doing exactly what he became a cop to do. Ron looked like he was winning.

Flip suddenly flashed on what undercover Klansman Ron Stallworth would say about that look on Ron’s face. What he, Flip, would have to say, to maintain cover. What he would have to do, to satisfy Felix and his insane bugged-out eyes.

The pen left Flip’s hand, winging upwards to lodge firmly in the foam drop ceiling tile above his head.

~~~

When Ron was done on the phone, Flip felt done for the day.

“I’m taking a break, Sarge,” he announced, fully intending not to come back.

“No time,” Sarge said. “My office, now.” He made a gesture encompassing all assembled.

Flip took his lighter back from Jimmy and was smoking again by the time they all made it through the door to Sarge's office.

“We can’t have a repeat of yesterday,” Sarge began.

“It won’t happen again,” cut in Ron. “We know better now, we know what—”

“No,” said Sarge. “We don’t. We misjudged the scene entirely, and the only thing we know now that we didn't know yesterday is we don't know jack. I won’t send Flip back in there blind.”

Ron darted a look in Flip’s direction, then back at Sarge, but kept back whatever he wanted to say.

“Ron’s doing his best,” Jimmy said.

Sarge sighed. “I didn’t say otherwise. Ron’s work is above and beyond. As is all of yours. But be smart, please. We need inside information, or this investigation is dead in the water.”

“Dead is right,” said Flip to no one.

“A friend set up a meeting for you three with an ex-KKK man,” continued Sarge. “University of Colorado, Denver, in exactly— one hour and forty minutes. So you’d better get going.” Then, as a dismissal: “Drive safe!”

In the parking lot, Flip pulled car keys out of his pocket and declared that he was driving. “What happened last time you drove, rookie? Oh, right, you nearly got us all killed. That psychopath Felix had me riding shotgun, literally. You have no idea what he’s capable of.”

“Of course I know what he’s capable of,” Ron said. “And so do you.”

It was a good point, but Flip wasn’t ready to admit it.

Ron politely offered Jimmy the front passenger seat, sliding in the rear without waiting for Jimmy’s answer.

It turned out he needn’t have bothered. They hadn’t made it out of town before Jimmy insisted Flip pull over and switch places with Ron.

“Stop signs, the meaning is right there in the name,” Jimmy said. “Get in the back and calm the fuck down.”

Flip complied, lighting up immediately.

“We’d all be better off if that was grass,” Jimmy wanted him to know.

“I’d report you,” Ron said.

The car radio was busted. Jimmy poked at the controls for a minute and then gave up. After that they drove in silence.

The road to Denver ran due north, the first line of Rocky Mountain foothills on the left and nothing at all on the right except for the long low slide of prairie, unbroken all the way back to the Mississippi. The big prairie sky was a hazy blue.

Ten miles out of town, Jimmy got Ron’s attention by pointing to one of the taller foothills. “There was a cross burning up there. Not long before you came to town. You hear about that?”

“Yeah,” said Ron.

“You could see it everywhere in the city. We’re a ways out here. Must have been big.”

“It’s how they make the papers,” Ron said. “The biggest, tallest, baddest couple of sticks ever set on fire. That’s national news, every time.”

“It worries me,” Jimmy said. “Our homegrown boys, they want attention.”

In the back, Flip tossed a butt out the window and lit up again.

“Sarge was right,” Ron said. “We don’t know enough. We went in expecting weapons violations, but there was too much we didn’t expect. Felix had a polygraph. Where does the Klan get that kind of equipment?”

“As if he knew how to use it,” scoffed Jimmy.

“He knew how to use the gun he put in Flip’s face,” Ron said softly.

But Jimmy was just getting started. “And what did he think he was going to find out? ‘Are you circumcised,’ are you kidding me?”

“Circumstanced,” said Ron.

“Circum- _stanced_?” Jimmy frowned.

“That is what he said.”

“Okay, well, anyway, fact is, ninety percent of white American males are circumcised.”

“How in the hell do you know that?” Ron asked, looking stunned.

“I read. And before you ask, that’s seventy-five percent for black Americans.”

Ron shook his head. “I wasn’t gonna ask.”

“What it means is that averaging over two Ron Stallworths, the probability of any Ron Stallworth belonging to the no-foreskin club stands at eighty-three percent.” Jimmy made a emphatic motion with his hands. “And that's before you tack on the Jewish bonus. So what what the ever-loving fuck did he think he was going to find out?”

Ron glanced toward Flip in the rearview mirror, but Flip pretended not to notice, and Ron turned his eyes back to the road.

“What he said was that he'd heard, and I quote, ‘Jews do something funny to their dicks.’ Who knows what he imagined that meant! But, listen, Jimmy, it doesn’t matter. If he were to find out that Jewish people do the same weird shit to their dicks that almost every other white American also does, would it change his mind? Would he wonder what else he’s got wrong about Jews?”

Ron made finger quotes over the steering wheel at ‘weird shit.’ Flip remembered that phrase from the basement too. Yes, Ron had been in there on the wire with him the whole time.

“Guess not,” Jimmy said, deflating.

“We can’t fight the Klan with facts. They didn’t reason their way into their ideology of hatred and they won’t reason their way out. That’s why it’s gotta be us. We have a better way to fight them.”

“What’s that?” asked Jimmy.

Ron smiled, sweet and slow. “Jail time.”

They rode in silence for a while. Flip stared out over the prairie, low and flat as the ocean. His anger at Ron had crested and ebbed and now his thoughts felt like countless jagged pieces washed up on the shore. Nothing seemed to fit anymore. There were a dozen definitions of Jewishness clashing against each other in his head. Could he define himself as Jewish simply because he was Jewish enough to be hated? That didn’t seem right.

It was Jimmy’s voice that knocked Flip out of his brooding. Flip felt that, left alone, he could have kept it up for the rest of the day and night.

“Say, Ron,” Jimmy said. “Numbers are numbers, but am I right?”

“Oh, motherfuck,” said Ron.

“Inquiring minds want to know.”

“Don’t say it.”

“Are you circumstanced?”

Ron opened his mouth and closed it again. He looked at Jimmy, then back at the road, then back at Jimmy. Unintentionally, Flip caught Ron’s eye in the rearview mirror. Ron hesitated. Then he put a hand up to check his hair and looked steadily into the mirror, holding Flip’s gaze.

“Yes, Jimmy,” said Ron, eyes on Flip, voice full of swagger. “I’m circumstanced.”

The absurdity of it took Flip entirely off his guard. How could he have ever questioned Ron's motivation? Flip flashed on what undercover Klansman Ron Stallworth would say about Ron this time. The hateful words that had seemed so powerful before, now felt abject. He had a vision of Felix’s bugged-out eyes bugging right out of his stupid face. _We’re coming for you_ , thought Flip. He couldn't help it. He started to laugh. He laughed and laughed, shaking with it, as relief, and something else, a feeling he couldn’t name, rolled over him in waves.

“I swear to God. I swear to God,” Flip said, stomach cramping. “If you think I give two shits what your dick looks like, you can go fuck yourself, Ron Stallworth.”

When the giggles lifted, Flip was a little out of breath. Even so, he tapped out three cigarettes and put them between his lips. He flicked open his lighter and lit all three in a row, one after the other, then passed two up between the front seats to Jimmy, nudging Ron’s shoulder as he did so.

“We’ll get them. We’ll find out what they're planning, and we’ll get them. All right, partner?” asked Flip.

Ron took a lit cigarette from Jimmy and puffed happily, eyes on the road ahead.  

“Sho nuff,” Ron said.


End file.
